Betty Reid Soskin, who retired four years ago as the country’s oldest national park ranger, said her life began at 50. But even at 104 she is still redefining who she is day by day.
At a 104th birthday celebration held Monday at the eponymous middle school in El Sobrante, Reid Soskin was greeted by hundreds of students and staff who made posters, wrote cards and sang her happy birthday several times.
“It doesn’t feel much different (to be 104) than it did yesterday,” Reid Soskin joked, speaking to the many media members at the school library. “There have been so many parts of my history that have stood out, but they all started after I was 50.”
Reid Soskin is perhaps most famous for her 15 years of national park service, where she told visitors the stories of unsung marginalized World War II workers at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond. It earned her a presidential coin from President Barack Obama.
But her story, and the glass ceilings she broke, started long before.
During World War II, Reid Soskin worked as a file clerk for an all-black union auxiliary, where she filed address change cards for workers, who moved frequently.
When she was married to her first husband, Mel Reid, the pair made history by being the first Black family to move to Walnut Creek in the 1950s, where her family and kids faced considerable racist backlash for essentially desegregating the neighborhood.
They also made waves opening one of the first Black-owned music stores in Berkeley in 1945, called Reid Records, which operated for 75 years. Reid Soskin was also a well known songwriter by her own right during the Civil Rights movement and even served as a “bag lady” (delivering cash) for the Black Panthers.
But at the age of 50, Reid Soskin said she lost all the men in her life: Within three months her father, her first husband and her second husband William Soskin all died. She loved them all but said their passings let her life unfold in new ways once she was no longer reliant on men.
“I felt lost for a while. I didn’t know if I was going to come back. And then I came back,” Reid Soskin said. “I came back as Betty. And I’ve been able to work as Betty ever since because I was no longer Betty Charbonnet. I was no longer Betty Reid. I was no longer Betty Soskin. I was defined as myself — and that was really something.”
After taking over the record store operations, Reid Soskin made a name for herself as a prominent community activist. While she served as a field representative for state representatives Dion Aroner and Loni Hancock she became involved in the development of the Rosie the Riveter park.
Her contributions helped shift the park’s trajectory to include the stories of Black, Japanese and other marginalized communities that contributed to the war effort.
The Rosie the Riveter park was established in 2000; in 2003 Reid Soskin left her state job to become a consultant there.
In 2007, at age 84, Reid Soskin then became a park ranger, serving until 2022, when she retired at 100. She led tours and shared her experiences as well as those of countless other Black and Brown women who were critical in the home front.
She said it’s important to encompass everyone’s stories to accurately reflect history — especially as national parks are coping with budget cuts, censorship and layoffs.
And it’s also important to listen to the stories of people who are often in the shadows in the present, because they are the people who are shaping the future, particularly middle-age women.
“We should begin to ask them what they are doing, because I think the women in their 50s are doing an awful lot,” Reid Soskin said, noting that middle-age women rarely get their flowers. “We work to get to 50 but then we get there and we begin to wonder how long it’s going to be. We never stop to realize that that is exactly what it is. We only have today.”
Reid Soskin said she lives in the present and is still discovering who she is. And her advice to women: Wave off the idea of having a “prime.”
“We never even know when we get there (our prime) until someone tells us,” Reid Soskin told Richmondside.
Betty Reid Soskin Middle School students rewrote their story
While Reid Soskin has been realizing her life’s purpose, the middle school students were re-examining theirs. What is now Betty Reid Soskin Middle School was once named Juan Crespi Middle School for decades — until 2021.
“The students did a project to understand the name of their school at the time and they discovered that Crespi was instrumental in the mission projects,” librarian Sylvia Zemke told Richmondside. “They realized that the mission system wasn’t kind to the native population here, and as a school where a majority of students are students of color, they said, ‘We should do something about this.’ ”
The students searched for a new name and they ultimately settled on Betty Reid Soskin. In 2022, on Reid Soskin’s 100th birthday, the school celebrated its name change. Her birthday celebrations have been a tradition there ever since.
“It’s incredibly empowering for the students who were part of that process to feel like they do have the opportunity to be able to influence the world in a way that’s much bigger than themselves,” Zemke said. “And the students here actually get to meet who their school is named after, which is so rare.”
The leadership class, led by teacher Suzanne Schultz, designed and painted the posters that greeted Reid Soskin at the front of the campus.
More than 100 students also wrote letters to Reid Soskin. That effort was led by history teacher Pavin Mann, who said she holds the title for longest-serving educator to be working at the middle school. She said she was teaching her students about the school’s namesake, particularly her contributions to the park as a primary source, by sharing her own experiences.
“We went into learning about primary and secondary sources and the students wanted an example of a primary source … so I thought this was a good opportunity to teach them how we make history,” Mann told Richmondside, pointing to a massive yellow birthday card decorated and filled with dozens of smaller cards from each student. “So I said if she signs this, this is going to be a primary source for them. This will remain in history and we are making history today.”
Mann said people, particularly young students, often don’t realize that what they are doing now, even at a small scale, is what shapes history later.
“That was something they (the students) could not believe but doing this letter made them feel like they are making history,” Mann said. “It’s so important because we want them to believe that they can and see what is happening in the world around them.”
Several students approached Reid Soskin during the event, thanking her for her contributions and for coming to the school. Other students shouted compliments about her age and were visibly giddy as she came by.
“There’s just such a tremendous outpouring of love for her that’s super powerful,” said Zemke, who decorated the library with pictures and posters of Reid Soskin’s story.
She joked that middle schoolers often believe they are older than they actually are, but when someone like Reid Soskin comes to campus, their excitement and eagerness to meet her is so childlike and pure.
As the librarian, Zemke told Richmondside her goal is have the students co-write a biography about Reid Soskin, not only to better preserve her story, but teach the students how critical it is to learn how to tell their own stories.
“All of us go through so many things, but not all of us have the courage to tell the story, to be vulnerable in that way, or maybe have the gift of being able to tell a story in a way that really engages other people. And (Reid Soskin) really has that,” Zemke said. “Stories are everything…you have to be educated on your rights, your history, that’s the only way forward through this.”
Zemke said it’s incumbent on residents to remember their history, especially now as people organize against various injustices and censorship, particularly during the Trump Administration.
Reid Soskin’s daughter, grandchildren and great grandson attended the birthday party.
Granddaughter Cokee Reid said it’s meaningful for the family to celebrate Reid Soskin with the community in and around Richmond, noting that of all the phases of her grandmother’s life, the most impactful were her contributions to the Rosie park.
Despite her busy work life, Reid said her grandmother was always around family.
“It was wonderful,” Reid told Richmondside. “She is like a regular grandma. We did things together and (she made me feel like) it was more important than her work and all her experiences.”
Reid Soskin said her advice to young people is to never stop asking questions — and never settle for the given answers.
“The answers always change. It’s the questions that are on the edge of where we are,” Reid Soskin said. “And that is exactly where we need to be.”
I have tears in my eyes after reading through this wonderful story on Ms. Reid Soskin — or pure ‘Betty’, as she redefined herself after mid-life tragedies. Thank you for this spot of joy in these times of otherwise deplorable news.
Thank you Jana Kadah for this excellent article about this amazing woman!